Tag Archives: drought

So, I just realized I have 41 posts waiting to be posted! But, they all need something – photo, recipe, one piece of info, etc, etc and right now I don’t feel like finishing any of them (sorry to some friends who are waiting for me to post at least one).

Instead, I figured I needed to write this one about random topics:

a) Drought, rain, lightning and wildfires – Did you know that at least California and Nevada are in a major drought (if you watch the news you can’t miss it). This afternoon I am listening to much needed rain, hearing thunder and praying the lightning I see doesn’t start a fire. In the last few weeks we have had wildfires started by lightning, power outages and 100 year flooding (luckily not in our neighborhood).

b) How do you want to be remembered? Some people think of that sentence in the ‘when I die’ context, but I am thinking about it in the day to day interaction with people you know and don’t know. At the beginning of June I spent time helping build frames for our local Quilt Show (mostly with people who didn’t know me at all or very well). I was happy a few weeks later when a ‘new’ friend told me that her husband liked me. Boy, that made me feel good.

c) Cancer stinks – Currently two friends have family members that are dealing with cancer. My family went through this 20+ years ago and it doesn’t get any easier to hear that someone I know and care about is going through it. I so wish a cure could be found so families don’t need to go through this anymore.

d) What are you happy about? On Facebook I saw some friends doing the #100happydays posts where they post at least one thing that makes them happy each day. I decided to join in. I am up to over 40 days now and I don’t see me ending at 100 days. The posts I make are not huge items, but they make me look for something good every day. I am also realizing that I post a lot less of the ‘bad’ now also.

I know this is not a usual post, but they are definitely topics I have been thinking about lately. I promise to finish at least one of the draft posts this week so my backlog doesn’t get even bigger.

Like this:

** Note: This post was NOT sponsored by any person or company and all opinions are mine. **

We have a 20+ year old house. A while ago we added wainscoting to the front bathroom (and updated the faucet), but hadn’t made any other major changes in years.

Original 1980s toilet

Well, between the current drought in Northern Nevada and the toilet having flushing issues we decide it was time to replace the original toilet (that used about 3 gallons per flush) with a new toilet.

You would think this was a pretty easy change, but we had to do some investigating to find a toilet that would fit our requirements:

a) Round bowl – Even though our home was a custom home built on spec (built between customer orders to keep the crew busy) the builder did not believe in large bathrooms. I know of a few houses in our area that were built by him – I am wondering if we all have small bathrooms (the floor in this bathroom is about 6′ by 6′).

We finally figured out we could order a round bowl, bone colored toilet (that had good reviews) online at Home Depot. We had the toilet delivered to the local Home Depot store so we could verify that it was in perfect shape before we brought it home. This is since we had tried to order a round bowl, bone colored toilet from a BIG online place about a year ago. We had that one delivered to the husband’s work (luckily) since it was shattered when they took it off the deliver truck (it was packaged in only the vendor’s original boxes). The one delivered to Home Depot was in perfect condition and the original boxes were actually packed inside another box with extra packing!

The handy husband installed it about two weeks ago and it works great! It is really quiet when it flushes and since it uses less water per flush you don’t get burned if someone flushes while you are in the shower (a bonus we didn’t even think about).

New American Standard Dual Flush toilet

The new toilet tank is physically smaller than the original tank. We kept the tank of the old toilet since I want try use it in the garden, but the husband smashed the old bowl (took one swing) and the pieces were put in the bottom of a tall planter outside.

In part two of the front bathroom remodel I will show the new flooring we also put in. (If we were going to the work of replacing the toilet we decided why not change the original vinyl out at the same time.)

What remodeling projects have you taken on lately?

Later – H

** Note: This post was NOT sponsored by any person or company and all opinions are mine. **